Taking Home the Win at the White Plains Crit

After last weekend's not so welcome rain, where I'm sure anyone who raced had the pleasure of cleaning out dirt from their ears for the rest of the week... It was with a big sigh of relief that Sunday was being blessed with that wonderful June sunshine. From the gun the pace was smooth and the field seemed to be moving fast, with three other teammates we had a good numbers to mark moves and control the race. A two man move eventually slowly started to make its way off the front, just dangling. After watching a Foundation rider solo bridge to that move they seemed to start gaining time slowly on the field.

I solo bridged to the other three and quickly realized we had the majority of the race to go (40ish laps). We would spend the rest of the race with our time gap on the field growing slowly with each lap. In the field my teammates (Matt V, Roger P, And Richard S) would go to work marking and covering/ squashing all hopes of catching our four man break, giving us leeway to keep putting time on the field - which eventually pulled into sight in front of us.

With five laps to go we lapped and rejoined the field, where my teammates did an amazing job of protecting me and shuttling me to the front. We spent the last five laps of the race covering moves, and setting up for the sprint. Going into the final two corners I was locked onto Rogers wheel like Mario Kart turtle. Then he hit the "Z" button, and I was sent hurdling to the finish line for the big win!

The game plan was teamwork. And when put into action it brought out the best in each of us on, Sunday.

All photographs courtesy of SKN Photography

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